Tracking the larger sentiments of Bucks fans week by week.
As we all await news on Damian Lillard’s upcoming checkup with bated breath, the Bucks are entering the playoffs somewhat healthy otherwise; depending on Jericho Sims’ progress, Dame may be the only Buck who is unavailable on Saturday for Game 1. Or perhaps everyone could be good to go! I’m not banking on that by any means, but we don’t have to squint too hard to see a world where that happens.
You’ll see our predictions of how the series will go later this week in our usual playoff roundtable, but we’ll take your temperature on some key elements to Bucks-Pacers today. With the emergence of the Giannis+bench lineup that closed out two of the season’s biggest wins over Minnesota and Detroit, I’m particularly interested in how Milwaukee’s second unit can now counter Indiana’s. T.J. McConnell has tormented the Bucks for years, especially with a big Game 6 in last year’s first round. He’s been decidedly quieter this year as the Pacers lost the regular-season series, with two 12-point outings the best among his four games played vs. the Bucks. With Kevin Porter Jr. around, I think Milwaukee has someone to counter McConnell’s shotmaking at the very least, and maybe even stop him on the other end (though Ryan Rollins is probably better suited for that).
In this week’s Tuesday Tracker, we get your series prediction and see how your optimism level for Dame is after another week of breadcrumbs. With the regular season over, and the Bucks finishing on a season-best eight-game win streak, we also do a broad comparison between them and other hot teams coming into the postseason as well as against last year’s squad.
As always, this poll will be open until midnight Central on Friday, and we’ll post the results later that day. Thanks for voting!